Diving the Gili's

Gili Islands, Indonesia – It is interesting to see how Bali has changed since the bombings in Jakarta. There are now guards at the hotel checking the ID of everyone entering from the front of the hotel or from the beach. Some of the guards are even carrying automatic machine guns which is a bit eerie. All the malls and restaurants we've been to have security guards who check people's bags as they enter, it definitely feels like security has been ramped up in a big way the last few days.

All in all we feel very safe though, business is going on as normal and there are tons of tourists so hopefully the Jakarta bombings won't affect Bali's tourism industry too much.

Today we arrived in Gili Trawangan which is a small island about an hour and a half boat ride from Bali. We are here for 5 days to do some diving. Trawangan is one of 3 islands known as the Gili Islands. All 3 are very small and you can walk around the whole island in a couple of hours. There also are no motor vehicles allowed on the islands. No cars, trucks, scooters just a few bicycles and pony carts.

Tomorrow for our first dive we are going to Shark Pt. This is supposedly one of the best dive sites around the Gili's and we are almost guaranteed to see some sharks which will be cool. I guess they usually hang out around 24m and we will be going down as far as 30m.

In the afternoon we will be going to Manta Pt another great site where we may even spot a manta ray.

It has been 3 weeks since our last dive in Koh Tao so we are really looking forward to getting back in the water and seeing some new things.